Friday, April 11, 2008

Looking at Workplace Psychological Abuse (Part One)


One of the topics I will be addressing on this blog are the experiences I had at my former employer, Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho, where I worked for 30 years before being forced to retire prematurely in 2006 as a result of being seriously injured on the job by a psychologically abusive co-worker, and also by negligent, unresponsive, and abusive management. The co-worker's behavior regularly jeopardized patient care. She was reported to management many times, but nothing was ever successfully done to address her destructive behavior which went on for more than two and a half years. I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a result of having to work in the hostile and toxic environment she intentionally created. I reported the PTSD to management at least 25 times over a period of approximately two years without ever receiving a response addressing the injury. I was threatened with termination by one manager for reporting the PTSD injury. I was also ordered by three managers, including a vice-president to not talk about the injury to my co-workers in the department, even though they were vulnerable to the same abuse and injury. The department manager told me that my injuries were "petty" even though PTSD is a potentially disabling injury that is treatable, but not curable. Like AIDS, once you have PTSD, you always have it.

I was a target and victim of "workplace psychological abuse," also know as "bullying/mobbing," and sometimes as "scapegoating." It's a common problem in this country and is getting more and more attention, but not at St. Alphonsus, where management not only ignores it when someone is the target of bullying/mobbing, (even after their own counseling staff diagnoses it and determines that it occurred on their campus), but actually participates in the abuse and adds to the injury. Unlike some more advanced countries where psychological abuse is included in laws addressing sexual and physical abuse, and those convicted of it face jail time, the US has no federal legislation against psychological abuse. If you want to know more about workplace psychological abuse I recommend the article by Noa Davenport, entitled "When Conflict in the Workplace Escalates to Emotional Abuse," which can be found at www.mediate.com/articles/davenport.cfm# or at www.mediate.com/pfriendly.cfm?id=1063.

Like sexual and physical violence, psychological violence has an enormously harmful impact on the person who is the target of this kind of violence. Those inflicted with psychological violence are changed forever. That's what violence, any kind of violence, does. It severs the target from the person he used to be. From then on that person has to reconstruct his life from a different place, or from a different foundation. It's a process that takes time and I'm only beginning to understand all the implications of what it means for me to have been the target of chronic violence at St. Alphonsus for over two years, but I believe I'm getting off to a new, strong, and promising beginning. At the age of nearly 60 I shouldn't have to go through this traumatic experience in my life, but then no one at any age should be subjected to any kind of violence. Unfortunately Saint Alphonsus has a long-standing reputation for mistreating their employees. I know of others who had to leave and like myself, needed years of therapy and medication to recover from the harmful treatment they received at Saint Alphonsus, treatment that was not accidental, but deliberate; treatment that, in my experience, may have started from an abusive co-worker, but really has its foundation in dysfunctional management.

The taproot of this problem is in senior management. When lower level managers refuse to address behavior that clearly jeopardizes patient care and causes injury to employees, and when the same managers behave in a dishonest, unethical, and injury-causing manner toward employees (as they did to me) it's because they have permission from senior management to misbehave like that. Judith Wyatt and Chauncey Hare in their excellent book, Work Abuse: How to Recognize and Survive it, write: "If managers misuse the power that accompanies their organizational role, the misuse is rarely questioned or confronted by higher authorities in the organization. In fact misuse is presumed, and the rights of lower or middle management to misuse role power against employees is often protected by top management." I believe that many employees at Saint Alphonsus have been mistreated and even injured by abusive behavior from either co-workers, or by negligent and abusive behavior from management.

My obligation as a responsible citizen and health care professional, is to (as I have been doing since leaving Saint Alphonsus), publicize the problem and address what happened to me. This is a community-endangering problem. I have been and will continue to address this problem in a peaceful civilized manner. Publicizing this experience needs to be done to raise awareness so people can take steps to protect themselves since what I experienced at Saint Alphonsus, from January, 2004, represents a serious public health menace that jeopardizes the health and safety of everyone in this region.

Stay tuned for more information. I will be addressing different aspects of this horror story in the future. Any questions? My e-mail address is leonardnolt@aol.com. Be sure to identify yourself.

Note: I can provide written documentation of the above reports, including but not limited to
--the diagnosis of PTSD from a St. Alphonsus counselor.
--the threat of termination from a manager for reporting to him the PTSD, a potentially
disabling on-the-job injury that I was required by medical center policy to report.
--the claim that my injuries were "petty" from the department manager.
--written orders from a vice-president to not talk about the abuse and the PTSD to other
department members.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am a Rt in California and have witnessed and experienced mangement bullying and intimidation (22 years practice). I was also a Union shop steward, hoping I could make a difference. Did not work out. alot of the grievences were swept under the carpet. employees who never had medical issues now had high blood pressure, on anti depressants, neurological meds due to excessive migrains, and the list goes on.
I have also seen it increase throughout the years as managers lead by title (meaning they carry a big ego based on thier title), and lack management education and most importantly knowledege of state and federal laws as well as reulations/acts that are to protect employees from such abuse in the workforce. It is up to the VP of HR to be sure that the leadership they place as departmental heads are familiar with these laws. Not only can the facility be heald leagally accountable, there is also a civil case athat can be placed agianst the bully/abuser. I truely believe that each individual and the intitution should be held accountable for the toxic environment and culture of the work place.
I came across your blog as I research for a paper I must right for a HR class I am taking. I found that the only way to make a difference is not to be part of the management team but part of the legal team.

Anonymous said...

I remember you situation a little bit.sorry this happened to you...

Anonymous said...

I used to work at St. Als and was a victim of workplace bully..I quit my job because of it.your story deeply influenced me.And I wish I filed a lawsuit...

Linda B. said...

I used to work at Saint Alphonsus and remember, what happened.A key person was Ben Murry in getting you locked up....

Leonard Nolt said...

Thanks for your comments and your interest in the very serious problem of workplace bullying which seems to be a chronic problem at St. Alphonsus. Thanks Linda for your comment. I'm sure you are correct. I've never met The
person you mentioned or spoken to him, but what I've heard about him is consistent with him retaliating against employees or former employees who report health and safety hazards at St. Alphonsus as I did. This is still an ongoing problem for me. I have to cope with the symptoms of PTSD on a regular basis, but I've developed a series of "exercises" which have proven effective in controlling those symptoms and in keeping the hounds of PTSD at bay. And St. Alphonsus continues to harass me. On Friday I received a letter from their attorneys telling me I would be arrested for trespassing if I came on their property. Apparently someone left a copy of the report I wrote after being injured and forced out of employment there in 2006. It wasn't me. I've never left any "papers" there. That particular one I wrote was sent by e-mail to about 400 co-workers out of concern for their safety, and because I felt I owed people an explanantion for my departure which I did not do because I wanted to leave but because I was being seriously injured on the job by an abusive co-worker, an injury that management knew for nearly 2 years, was taking place, but did nothing about. This copy or copies of my report is probably being left by an employee who is being bullied and injured as I was, but cannot report it, because if he/she did, would probably be even more seriously injured and lose his/her job, as happened to me. That individual has all my sympathy and compassion. I am certainly glad that I publicized my experience, because I know it is a source of comfort to other bully victims. Abuse has to be reported so something is done about it. Management at ALs ttries to cover up the abuse. Like a child molester or sexual predator who tells his victims to not talk about the abuse and injury, management at St. Alphonsus tells victims of bullying there to not talk about it and threatens to fire them if they do. I was ordered to lie about the PTSD injury if asked told I would be terminated if I talked about it with anyone in the RT Dept. The Employee Relations Manager even told me on Oct 4, 2005, I would be fired if I reported any more problems with the bully to him or the RT manager, and he did in right in front of the bully, thereby giving her official management permission to continue bullying and injuring me, which she was more than happy to do. I was never offered any protection from additional injury, nor any treatment for the injury. And they're still trying to prevent people from knowing what happened, even though bullying is a serious health and safety in this country, but especially at St. Alphonsus. Thanks for your support and interest. Take care.

Linda said...

Hello leonard.Ben at that time that was the nursing director for the hospital.You had upper management running scared..They had security putting up your picture everywhere in the hospital.We called HR to find out,what the heck was going on.We were told,you made some threats ect. to harms others. I later talks with a few co worker that knew more about it.they told me that the employee assistance center had to disclose,what you told them ect..Cause you were deemed a threat to others.HR along with their information they gathered, were able to get the police involved in this matter..people at work had plenty to talk about for a few months.

Leonard Nolt said...

Thanks for your response, Linda. I never threatened anyone. I reported what happened to me. I also reported the dangers associated with bullying. I had reported the bullying to management numerous times. The PTSD injury I also reported to different levels of management requesting help, including department, human resource, and senior management, the bioethics committee, and even management at Trinity Health, a total of 25 times. I never received any help from management. So I had no choice except to report it to my co-workers after I left St. Als. Management's false claim that I threatened someone was their intentionally malicious retaliation against me for reporting how they treated me to my co-workers. When I reported my experience to my co-workers, some of whom were also being injured by bullying, I mentioned (dozens of times) in the two reports, my concern for the health and safety of people at St. Alphonsus(more than 40 times in the longer report). I also mentioned the dangers caused by bullying to those injured by PTSD, which can include temporary or permanent disability, alcoholism, drug addition, domestic abuse, homelessness, plus the rare but possible scenario of someone retaliating violently against the employer or institution where the abuse occurred. Which is exactly what happened at Columbine, Virginia Tech, Standard Gravure, and the numerous other incidents of people "going postal" in toxic workplaces and institutions around the country. The one thing that all of those tragedies had in common is that, in every incident, the person or persons committing the violence had been the target of chronic bullying. I wrote what I did out of concern that the same thing could happen at St. Alphonsus, since I know others who were being bullied there also. Management has refused to address the problem. Their only response has been to try to silence and discredit those who report the problem. Management ripped what I wrote out of context and the only reason to do that was to intentionally mis-represent what I was saying. My personal physician told me that management at St. Alphonsus was trying to depict me as a "nutcase" in order to discredit my reports of being abused there. When a person is reporting the dangers caused by bullying he has to mention the possible acts of violence against the institution where the injury occurred, just as someone writing about nuclear power must mention Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three-Mile-Island, or someone writing a report on the dangers of living in a mice-infected environment must mention the hantavirus. Otherwise those reports would be incomplete and lack credibility. Instead of thanking me and addressing the problem, management at Saint Alphonsus retaliated against me for reporting the problem and deliberately and falsely accused me of threatening them in order to discredit my reports. Bullying is an act of violence, and violence in the workplace must be reported, even the violence that comes from management. I plan to continue reporting and writing about my experiences. I understand that this comment is repetitious, but I hope those who read it will realize that I did not threaten anyone, and that management's response was solely an act of retaliation against me. One unthinking person told me that management was concerned about my safety! Yea! Right! - after ignoring more than two dozen reports of me being injured on the job! The psychiatrist who engineered the involuntary admission to the psych hospital (and bragged about it to me) was fired from his job as medical director for the way he treated me. But that might have been done deliberately to divert responsibility and blame from management to the psychiatrist who, I think, was doing exactly what management wanted him to do. Thanks again for your comment and your ongoing interest in the still un-addressed and un-resolved problem of bullying that is condoned, practiced, and encouraged by management at St. Alphonsus.

Linda said...

Hi Leonard.this is a short version of what happened to you.In the spring of 2006 I came back to work after being out two months having surgery.The harassment began shortly after I came back to work.My supervisor began to target me and accuse me of poor work performance do to my limitations now cause of my surgery.I worked in ortho and going between there and the main sugery 10 or 20 times a shift was not easy anymore.My ordeal lasted 14 months all cause this supervisor was trying to give my position and hours to someone else.Her abuse included (but not limited to) slandering me and talking behind my back,writting me up and falsely accusing me when there was a problem. Yelling at me at least 6 time on the job.My last two preformance evals were the lowest scores I ever got working there,the result was two poor merit increases. The final straw was my hours were cut to 32 a week.I met with the department manager at the time Nancy Carlson and was told, as a full time employee I was only guaranteed 32 hours a week.Also that part time people needed hour too.It was so convenient that the same supervisor who was targeting me was in charge of the schedule.This was all taking a toll on me.I was taking these bad feeling home with me.I felt like people I knew and trusted.Were now keeping their distance, especially after I went to Human resources.I took my case to human resources to no vail.I was able to show proof that all those other years (14 yrs), my performance evaluation were good. And that the last 14 months followed a pattern. They refused to consider my side of the story.Sure it that beneficial for them to hire a new person,pay them 4 or 5 dollars less and all that long term disability I had built up for any other Emergencies or surgeries.I was forced out of my job plain and simple.I was seeing what it was doing to my personal life, and I was scared what was in storage for me had I stayed any longer.I left there in the spring of 2007.As a retiree, I still get a card in the mail for a invitation for the Christmas lunch in and a free turkey handout, which is a nice gesture on their part.But as for everyelse I dealt with that another matter.Keep up the good work Leonard.

Leonard Nolt said...

Thanks for telling us your story, Linda. It's unfortunate that you had to experience that abusive mistreatment also, as have many other Saint Alphonsus employees. You're doing better than I am though. In the six years since I was forced out of St. Alphonsus I only received one invitation to the Christmas luncheon! And I think my chances of being invited to this 2012 Christmas luncheon are not getting any better! But I know that what I'm doing in publicizing this significant regional health and safety hazard, that is the bullying at St. Alphonsus, is more life-saving and health enhancing than attending any luncheon. It's really amazing to me that management at Saint Alphonsus actually permits and encourages the bullying and psychological abuse that takes place there. There is no possible way for them to benefit from that in the long run. If the employee relations manager from human resources treated other people the way he treated me (as I know he did) I'm sure many people, after being forced out of there, were diligently searching for reasons to sue Als. He refused to listen to my side of the story, never gave me an opportunity to defend myself from the bully's false accusations, made numerous promises that he did not keep, threatened to fire me for reporting the PTSD injury to him, ordered me to lie about the injury if anyone asked, and told me, in front of the bully, that I would be fired if I reported any more problems with her behavior to him. I had to wonder many times if perhaps there was some improper relationship between the bully and a member of management. Even the vice-president in charge of missions and human resources treated me in a very unprofessional manner. I reported the unethical behavior of the employee relations manager to her in a meeting with her in 2008, and every time I told her something he did, she would respond by saying, "Oh we wouldn't do that; that's unethical." "We wouldn't do that; that's unethical." She never offered to have anyone investigate, or to address the problem with him. That, of course, raises the following question: how long does someone have to work at St. Als with an "outstanding" (the word used by the vice-president to describe my work record) work record as I had, before one has any credibility when they report something to management. I had been there for 30 years, and I was not listened to, not believed, and what I reported was dismissed as one would brush away a pesky fly. So how long must someone work there to receive a hearing and respectful treatment from management. If 30 years isn't enough, does it take 50 years, or a hundred? I understood that the bully's behavior toward me was unusual and, I thought, somewhat pathological, even before she started bullying me, but I carried a copy of the Customer Service Standards with me to and from work every shift for over a year and a half while I was coping with this ordeal. I thought they were really good standards. I read them frequently and followed them to the letter thinking that would result in everything turning out OK. I was wrong. The bully violated half a dozen Customer Service Standards every shift we worked together, which I reported to management, but they never did anything about it. One reason is because no one in management made any attempt to follow those standards either. After the highly toxic Oct 4, 2005 meeting with the dept. manager, employee relations manager, and the bully, I went out to my car, pretty much in a state of shock at the way I had been treated, and in the parking lot, took out the Customer Service Standards, checked them, and counted 18 that the employee relations manager had violated in less than an hour! I realize now that those standards are simply a public relations gimmick, and not meant to be followed. I was injured there and lost my 30 year employment there, a job that I, for the most part, loved; in part because I followed those standards.

Leonard Nolt said...

Just a conclusion to my last comment. I don't know the newest CEO, Sally Jeffcoat, who was not there when I was. But a close acquaintance of mine had a conversation with her some time ago, and she told that person that one of her goals is to improve relations between management and employees. I frequently talk to people who work there, and I've heard of no notable improvements. In fact one long term, (over 20 years) St. Als employee told me a few weeks ago that "it's worst than ever." But I guess that's not surprising. People who have and abuse power thrive on abuse. They rarely give it up willingly or graciously. Thanks again for communicating with me, Linda. If you want to communicate more privately, my e-mail address is LeonardNolt@AOL.com. I hope you have experienced some healing from that ordeal. I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers. Take care and blessings to you.
Leonard Nolt